Final Scene
by Kamenashi-JaeJoong
Summary: You knew she lived."


This is the final song from Sweeney Todd, based more off of the movie with the lyrics from the song as if they were saying them. This is hard to explain. Perhaps if you read, you'd understand.

DISCLAIMER: Sweeney Todd does not belong to me, but to its respected owners. I only claim the words that are not the lyrics and then bits of dialogue thrown here and there.

* * *

"Toby? Where are you, Love?" When they rounded the corner, Mrs. Lovett hoped and prayed that Toby stayed away. She loved Mr. T, she did, but she didn't want to lose the lovely little boy. But then she considered what would happen all this was over. She would gain Mr. T. and Toby, if Todd allowed her, there was her family right there. Then if Mr. Todd got his daughter back, she would have the perfect family. She could raise orphan Toby and motherless Johanna and eventually, Mr. Todd would love her too; maybe not the way he loved his Lucy, but he would love her just the same.

"Where is he?" She asked Todd who was behind her, checking for places she missed. "Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around," she called out. Her voice echoed eerily back, mixing evenly in with the drips of water.

"Toby?" Todd's voice startled her and she jumped. His voice was so much louder than her's, piercing the walls of the sewer, booming back in ricochets. "Toby!"

"Nothing's gonna harm you, Darlin', not while I'm around." But no Toby.

"Toby!"

"He's not here," Mrs. Lovett whispered, grabbing Todd's arm. "We'd better get back. He's only a child and he has no where else to go. The judge will be here soon and what will happen if he finds Johanna before you do?"

The searching glint in Mr. T.'s eyes faded into a murderous gleam. "We'll find him later," and he pressed a hand to the center of her back.

* * *

"Mr. Todd!" Antony came rushing in the door, slamming it so hard it bounced off the wall. There was no one in the shop and with this observation he realized he had no time to wait. "You wait for him here," he said to Johanna. "I'll return with the coach in less than half an hour. Don't worry. No one will recognize you." He touched the cap hiding her yellow hair and quickly tweaked the pants he lent her. "You're safe."

"Safe?" She murmured, her big blue eyes boring into his. "So we run away and all our dreams come true?"

"I hope so," he answered softly, truthfully.

"I've never had dreams," Johanna whispered, looking away out the window. "Only nightmares."

"Johnanna," Antony gently pinched her chin to have her face him. "When we're free of this place all the ghosts will go away." He promised.

The small girl shook her head. "No, Antony," she removed his fingers from her chin and held them delicately in her own, as though she feared letting him go. "They never go away."

Antony stared at her for a long moment, knowing she was right and wrong, wishing he could take the old look out of her young eyes. He would protect her, come hell or high water, she would never have to suffer again. "I'll be right back to you. Half an hour and we'll be free." He kissed her hands, pinched her scarf in place, and rushed out the door.

Johanna studied the room. It was bare save for a chair and a set of drawers pressed against the wall. The walls were a faded, sickly grey with odd stains around the chair and the walls nearby. Her fingers rode the drawers, coming to a closed, expensive silver picture frame. Checking behind her in case anyone caught her snooping, she quickly opened it, cocking her head to the side to study it.

Inside was a picture of a beautiful woman holding a child. The woman smiled innocently, not a care in the world, adoring the person staring back at her with her eyes. Her hair was yellow, a soft, lovely color. The child in her hands waited patiently, hands holding on to the arms of her mother who held her protectively with a baby's gown waterfalling over her mother's knees.

Johanna touched the photo, longing to know the woman, wondering if it was this Mr. Todd's wife and child.

The stairs leading up groaned under someone's weight, spooking the young woman. She slapped the frame shut, set it back, and rushed to the chest she had missed against the wall behind the door. As she closed the lid over herself, she was hit with an almost rotting smell, one of those stenches that never came out no matter how much you washed and aired. It reminded her vaguely of blood. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The mad woman shakily poked her head in the room before stepping all the way in, not bothering to close the door. "Beadle," she drawled. "Beadle. No good hidin' I saw you. Are you in there still, Beadle?" She checked under the strange chair, "Beadle," and in the drawers, "Beadledee Beadle!"

She caught her reflection in the mirror and she fancied herself a lovely woman instead of a raggard grown street rat. She twirled and her dirtied skirt billowed around her. She liked the feeling of it and did it again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

"Beadle dle dle dle deadle dumplin'," she trilled as she spun. "Beadle dumplin'." Faster and faster she went, watching the rafters, searching, searching, searching. "Beadle eedle eedle beadle eedle eedle eedle eedle eedleedleedleedle-"

She stopped.

In the doorway was a looming man, a man with an abnormal abnormality about him.

"Who are you?" He asked, stepping forward to tower over her. "What are you doin' here?" This man was with the witch, the stenching woman with her satanic smells coming from down below. She must warn him, must warn him, must warn him...

"Evil it is, Sir," she lunged, pleading. "The stink of evil from below - from her!" She clenched onto his wrists and stared madly. "She's the devil's wife! Beware her, Sir, she with no pity in her heart." She slowly cocked her head to the side and widened her eyes, opening her ragged mouth. "Hey, don't I know you, Mister?"

Todd pulled away from her, working to undig her claw-like fingers from his forearms. She struggled hard for her frail shape and grasped him again, bringing herself closer and mumbling incoherants in his face.

"Mr. Todd?"

The judge.

Furiously he threw her away, landing her over the trap door. The heavy steps of the judge loomed closer, louder. Sweeney ripped out a razor without any thought and slit it quickly across her throat.

Her eyes widened a split second before the light left them, her mouth gaped open, and blood trickled slowly down her throat, coating all crimson. Just before the door behind him opened, Todd smashed the pedal down and the insane woman fell. As the trap door closed, Sweeney heard with only his sensitive ears the crunch of her breaking her legs. ~~~

"Where is she?" The judge questioned not even as the door opened fully. He saw the barber turn quickly, a reassuring smile that did the job on his face.

"Below, Your Honor," he answered, stepping towards him. "With my neighbor. Thank heavens, the sailor did not molest her. Thank heavens, too," he said quickly, holding out his arms for Turpin to come closer. He did just that, devouring everything falling out of his mouth. "She has seen the errors of her ways." The news elated him: Johanna, accepted him?

"She has?" He asked, breathless, wanting to be sure, desperate for it to be morbidly true.

"Oh yes," the barber supplied. "She speaks only of you - longing for forgiveness."

Absolute forgiveness flooded him, as well as a well known other emotion that would finally be fulfilled, at the news of his precious, young Johanna. "Then she shall have it," he answered truthfully. "She'll be here soon?"

"Yes." The barber said quietly, nodding once.

"Excellent, my friend." As soon as they were wedded, Turpin made a mental note to make this barber the most well known, give him a seat of honor. Anything for Turpin to have his child-bride.

"How 'bout a shave?" The barber suddenly asked, a new, odd gleam in his eyes. "Sit, Sir, sit." Now that he thought about it, if he got this shave now, he would look more refreshed and clean for his soon-to-be wife. He would be irresistable to young Johanna.

So he sat, elation still coursing through him as Mr. Todd flung a white sheet over him. "Oh," he sighed. "Pretty women,"

"Pretty women, yes," Sweeney agreed behind him.

"Johanna, Johanna," Turpin crooned to himself, fueling the fire in Todd's body.

"Pretty women," Todd agreed again, grinding his teeth against the terrible yearning to thinly and slowly slice this thick neck over and over, making the pain last. "Pretty women are a wonder, pretty women,"

"What would we do without-"

"Pretty women," the oaf was making this easy to distract him. "Blowing out the candles or combing out their hair."

"Then they leave-"

"Even when they leave," Todd finished, thinking pleasant, perverse thoughts of permanent leavings.

"Even when they leave," Turpin corrected himself, speaking louder as Todd shaved on. This was the perfect dramatic backdrop.

"Leave-"

"Leave you and vanish," now he was correcting Sweeney Todd? No.

"They still-" his blade inched closer to a major artery.

"They somehow can still remain."

"Are there."

"They are there with you."

"They're there."

Here it was, this climatic moment that electrifed the air for the demon barber. The judge had no idea what was about to occur.

"Ah," said judge sighed deeply, possibly tired from the quick seriously banterous conversation they had. He relaxed farther in the chair, tilting his neck to the perfect place. "Seldom it is one meets a fellow spirit."

Fellow spirit indeed.

"With fellow tastes." Todd said, swiping another batch of bristly hair of the Judge's almost dead face. "In women at least." He said softly.

It didn't pass Judge Turpin's ears like he had thought. The man's brows came together in the middle of his head. "What's that?" Ah, he couldn't believe his ears. But it would be wrong for a father to be in love with one's daughter, so Todd would thought. Revenge for Lucy, revenge for Johanna, was now.

"The years have no doubt changed me, Sir," Benjamin continued softly, becoming slightly lazy with the blade on purpose. "But then I suppose the face of a barber, the face of a prisoner who died, is often rememberal." The Judge stiffened in the demon chair, lifted his face off the back, and studied the barber's face, searching for any significant feature of a man from before. He saw the insane murderous light in the man's eyes now, turning his eyes into sucking black holes, his mouth curved in a satanic smile. To change this killer's face gentle would be to turn him into -

"Benjamin Barker-"

"BENJAMIN BARKER!!" Sweeney Todd screamed, raising his blade and shoving it deeply down the Judge's column in his throat, ripping it back out, blood spurting a record height to splatter in Todd's hair and shoulders. He threw the singing blade back into the neck, more blood shooting up like a fountain of crimson water. The lowly man choked on his own blood, gurgling in the back of his neck as he fought weakly.

In a rush of adrenaline, Sweeney Todd stabbed him one more time before slamming his foot down on the pedal. The chair tipped back and opened the trap door. Down fell the virtuous taking man, Todd listened, the trap door still open, and the sickening crunch of bone crushing force.

Slowly, he released his foot and the chair crawled back in place, the trap door swinging up to replace itself invisibly. He still had his blade digging into his palm. Slowly, he turned away, a great relief lifting up from him. His wife's death avenged, his daughter soon to be taken back: the devil himself couldn't catch him now.

"Rest now, my friend," he said to his beloved blade, opening his fingers to create a bed for it. "Rest now forever. Sleep," he whispered, stepping to set it back in its case forever. "The untroubled sleep of the angels-"

There was a faint creaking that caught his ears. He grasped his blade again, flicked it open and pointed it at the noise. The small chest in the corner was lifted two inches, two huge eyes peering back at him.

Johanna had heard the woman come in, had heard her singing madly to herself, and didn't dare move. She heard a man come in and ask what the woman was doing and she gave a confusing answer about the devil's wife. Then the woman didn't speak anymore; Johanna wondered what had happened to her. She heard the Judge come in, and it terrified her. She feared he would come looking for her and find her. Soon he was going to open the chest and she would be found. When the man told her he was going to give her back to him and betray Antony, she felt the blood drain from her face and her heart race like a hummingbird's wings. She swallowed as she heard them conversing, thinking how she was going to have to fight her way to the door and run. How she would have to find Antony and flee with him, were she to find him by miracle's chance. But the man she took to be Mr. Todd, never mentioned her again. There was murmured talking for a while and a scream of "Benjamin Barker!" that startled her enough to jump, rattling the chest, frightening her to think she'd given herself away. The sound of a dying dog came muffled to her ears, a mechanical clicking, a tiny, faint sound of crunching, and then nothing. A murmured solilique, with words she couldn't understand.

And then, finally, an eerie solid silence.

Perhaps Mr. Todd had left. Surely the judge had left. Was it safe enough to come out? Could she find this supposedly safe haven safe enough until Antony got back? He had assured her she was safe, she was unrecognizable, they could count on this good samaritan to keep them safe.

Slowly, Johanna peeked out of her box, checking the coast to be clear, and stretched her aching muscles while she quietly tried to climb out.

She didn't get the lid open even a foot, not even two inches, before the man in the corner, whom she didn't see, whirled around to stare at her. Frozen, caught, she saw no way out.

"Who are you?" The man asked, just like to the woman. Johanna feared for a moment she might disappear like the crazy woman. She took a deep breath, told herself she was being silly, this man was going to help them, and lifted the lid all the way. As she climbed out, she noticed stains up the man's arm and all over the front of his white shirt. What in the name of God-?

She climbed out and said, "I-I'm-I-"

"What are you doing here?" Todd asked the young lad before him. What had the child been doing in the chest? Had the boy seen what he had done? Did he have one more in line for one last shave?

The lad stumbled over himself again, terrified and wide eyed, like a deer. He knew.

Johanna got a better look at the chair and saw dark red stains staining the back of the chair, some of it running down slowly.

"How 'bout a shave?" Todd murmured, moving forward again, grabbing the boy by the arm. "A lad like yourself surely does. First time?" He whipped out his blade. "On the house."

So the disguise did work. Antony did a good job with it; maybe too good. Mr. Todd shoved Johanna in the chair, mixing confusion in with her growing fear. "But I'm not-" She could feel her back sticking to the chair and for a moment she was disgusted.

"No need to say anything, my dear boy," he said dangerously. "It's no charge." He confused Johanna, she couldn't understand, he wasn't reaching for the cream, he was already going for her neck-

Screeching shrieks from far below started both of them and Mr. Todd nicked the boy's neck. His calculating eyes sought to see through the floor boards down the the chamber below. Mrs. Lovett: what had she done now?

He stared back at the boy and sized him up quickly. Too late, he couldn't do much.

"Tell anyone what you've seen," he made sure the young boy saw the blade. "And we'll be seeing each other again." And he raced out.

Johanna saw that white stripe in his hair flash down the stairs, holding her heart beneath her skin. She gasped for air, knowing she had just escaped some terrible situation, too stunned to cry. A thin line of blood trickled down her throat.

She didn't know how long she sat there, long enough for whatever stuck her to the chair to dry.

Frantic steps climbed the stairs. Surely it was the barber. Surely he was coming back to kill her.

"Johanna!"

She jumped, but it was only Antony, looking alive and scared at the same time. He smiled as he saw her, then looked around.

"Did Mr. Todd never come?"

"Antony, he-"

"I'm sorry, Johanna, but you'll have to tell me later. The coach is outside and we don't have long. I've already put your things inside. We must hurry. Come." He grasped her hand and dragged her away. Weirdly, she noticed the sound of her shirt peeling away from the chair.

Antony helped her into the coach before throwing himself in and banging on the ceiling. The coach-man took off immediately at a good fast pace, taking them away from everything.

Neither of them said anything: Antony watching the road and Johanna still in her state of shock, replaying what had happened in her mind; if it had really happened.

They were far away soon enough and Antony relaxed. "I'm so sorry, Johanna." He murmured. "But everything's alright now." He took the cap off her head and gently shook her hair down. "You're so lovely," he said, smiling at her. She blinked at him, memories coming back sharper, feelings coming home stronger. "What happened while I was gone? Did Mr. Todd come? What happened here?" He asked, of the dried line of blood.

Johanna threw herself at him and sobbed.

* * *

"Get off me!" Mrs. Lovett shrieked, pulling her hands out of the judge's bloodly grasp. "Why won't you die? Die!" She kicked him hard in the face. He rolled over, his eyes unseeing. There was another body, one that hadn't been part of the plan. Mrs. Lovett took a quick look at it and gasped. No, no, no. This was not part of it. How did the fool-? Before Mr. T. came. She had to get rid of the body-

"What happened?"

Oh, no.

"Oh, nothin', deary, nothin'. It was nothin', just the old judge. He took longer to die. But I'm fine now. You go on, I'll be done in a minute and we can celebrate." She was talking so quickly, already taking the extra body and lugging it in the shadows towards the fire chamber.

"Let me do it," Mr. Todd said, quickly coming to take her away.

"No, no. I got it. You run along-"

"I have it, Ms. Lovett." He said loudly. She had no choice but to drop her into his arms and step away, her heart fluttering already for what was to come.

This body was too light to be the judge. Surely, with such a tall and pompous ass, he would be heavier. Mr. Todd's eyebrows furrowed as he set the body down. Turpin wasn't wearing a bonnet. This had to be the mad woman from before-

He pulled the bonnet away and stilled dead.

Those eyes. That nose. Those cheek bones. Those eyelashes. That yellow hair.

"Lucy?" He whispered. LucyLucyLucyLucy. He took one finger and ran it from her hairline down her jaw. Her dull, glassy blue eyes stared at him, no life left. They stared at him with her last words of recognition, words he ignored.

The world slowed then stopped, time following after it like a child. Todd closed her eyes, not able to bear them staring at him.

"'Don't I know you?' she said." He didn't bother to look at Lovett. "You knew she lived." Her pale face, already white beneath the dirt and grime. Her white skin, ruined. Her blonde hair, dull. Oh, Lucy. LucyLucyLucy.

"I was only thinkin' of you." Mrs. Lovett said quietly, almost in tears. Her heart still raced in her chest, terrified he would turn on her.

"You," he whispered again, never looking away from his Lucy's dead, pitiful face. "You lied to me."

Ms. Lovett shook her head, backing away a little, towards the door. "No, no, not lied at all. No, I never lied,"

"Lucy," Mr. Todd groaned.

"Said she took a poison she did. Never said that she died,"

"I've come home again," he whispered to her, letting his fingers touch her ratted yellow hair. She never stirred; her eyes didn't flutter like they did when she would wake. Her eyes didn't open to smile at him.

"Poor thing, she lived," Ms. Lovett continued on, working to save her life and the man she wanted. "But it left her weak in the head. All she did for months was just lie there in bed, shoulda' been in a hospital,"

"Lucy," he moaned, holding her close to him, her blood staining him, searing him, scarring him.

"Wound up in bedlam instead, poor thing." Ms. Lovett went on, faster as she tried to get her point across of why she didn't tell him before. She saw him set her down, lovingly, devestatedly, rising to his feet like a man on death row.

"Oh my god!" Benjamin screamed.

"Better you should think she was dead." Ms. Lovett kept at it, begging for her life and her reasons at the same time, a woman of many talents. "Yes, I lied 'cause I love you," she confessed. If she were to die, she was going to let everything out. Maybe, if she played her cards right, she would live and he would still be her's. Lucy was gone now. It really wasn't her fault. She wasn't the one to slide the blade across Lucy's neck. "I'd be twice the wife she was," she added for good measure.

"Lucy," Benjamin, pleaded, open your eyes, Lucy. LucyLucy.

"I love you," Lovett pleaded too, stepping torwards him. He didn't turn around, he only staring at his dead wife, he wouldn't listen to her. Listen!

"What have I done?" He keened, his voice echoing in the chamber, magnifying his pain. Lucy.

"Could that thing," she screamed pointing to the body of his wife, "have cared for you like me?"

It was her fault.

"Ms. Lovett," he said, turning on her, standing, smiling, backing her into the hard stone wall. "You're a bloody wonder, eminently practical and yet appropriate as always. As you've said repeated there's little point in dwelling on the past."

Ms. Lovett watched him as a caged animal would, facing their skinners, her back against the cold wall. "Do you mean it?" She asked, letting herself hope. So, he could forgive her? He cared for her enough to do that?

"Now come here, my love," he said, indicating with his fingers to his palms to meet him halfway.

"Everything I did, I swear, I thought was only for the best," she continued, still watching, wanting him to understand that she never meant for Lucy to die, just to never come back, wanted him to understand that she could love him more than Lucy, that she could be better.

Mr. T. smiled, showing his teeth. "Not a thing to fear, my love."

"Believe me?" She asked, falling into his open arms.

"What's dead is dead," he assured, taking her hand in his and holding her tight across the waist.

"Can we still be married?" Her little version of her perfect wedding. They'd start all over and be happy.

"The history of the world, my pet," he stated loudly, spinning her away from the body.

"Oh, Mr. Todd! Oh, Mr. Todd! Leave it to me!" Ms. Lovett said quickly, reveling in his arms again.

"Is learn forgiveness and try to forget!" He said so honestly, whirling her around the chamber, the heat of the fire warming her bones.

"By the sea, Mr. Todd we'll be comfy cozy!" She said frantically. Start all over. With Toby. With Johanna. And forget all of this. "By the sea, Mr. Todd where there's no one nosy!"

"And life is for the alive, my dear," Todd grinned, spinning her closer and closer to the boiler. "So let's keep living it!"

"Just keep living it!" Ms. Lovett laughed.

"Really living it!" Mr. Todd snarled, throwing her into the flames. She landed perfectly in the heart of it all, knocking over her pies and burning alive. She screamed, music to Sweeney Todd's ears. She screamed the screams he couldn't: of pain, of torture, of high pitch pleading. He watched her skin turn black before it fell off her in charred ribbons. He watched her hair catch fire and light like a fuse all the way to her scalp. The smell of burning human flesh reached his nose as an aphrodisiac would. He shut the door and stared at her through the slot, the heat burning the image of the murderous Ms. Lovett's remains dissolving into black chunks among her famous cannibal meat pies.

Todd slid the slot in place and turned to the heap that was his wife. His beautiful, darling wife. His Lucy. He dropped his blade with a memorable sound to the stone of the chamber. There was no use for it anymore.

Almost silently, the grate in the corner of the room moved. It was pushed aside enough for a small boy to crawl through quietly.

Barker's steps were soft and didn't make a sound and when he knelt next to her, his throat closed tight with tears. He cradled her in his arms, pushing strands of hair out of her face gently, skimming her lips with his fingertips.

Todd's back was to him, and Toby found a perverse pleasure in it for a lad of such a young age. He took cautious care when he picked up the blade, unfolding it, shrinking away only slightly at the bloody stains.

The pain was too great. The hole was too big. Her life was too unfair.

"Lucy," Benjamin whispered, cradling her to his chest, rocking slightly. "There was a barber and his wife," he murmured in her ear. "And she was beautiful. A foolish barber and his wife; She was his reason and his life," a life not worth living anymore. His revenge meant nothing. He meant nothing. "And she was beautiful and she was virtuous." Slow tears fell down his face, following the hollowed out cheeks to drip down his chin onto her face. "And he was -"

Benjamin Barker felt the presence and knew who it was. He felt the presence and knew what was to come. He felt the presence and lifted his throat. Before it happened, he silently thanked Toby, though he knew it was worse punishment to live and he was given a way out. Perhaps, some God would give him a chance to see Lucy one more time and tell her he was sorry.

For everything.

Toby heard him cut off short, saw him lift his neck, and it infuriated him. He was accepting death, not begging for it on his knees. He was giving the go-ahead instead of trying to talk his way out. Tobias's nose wrinkled in rage.

He grabbed Sweeney Todd under the chin, lifted his neck to the point of pain, and slit it, from one end to the other.

Tobias didn't stay to watch the head fall to the chest. He didn't stay to watch the blood slide in rivers onto Lucy's face, baptizing her. He didn't watch as the blood overflowed from her face down to the floor, following the cracks between the stones into the boiler and into the sewer.

He didn't watch as, even in death, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street held his beloved wife and found that one piece of peace he had craved for fifteen years.


End file.
